https://eatingdisordersanonymous.org
https://odysee.com/@Agramon:4/The-Mill---Deeper-Sleep-_-1-Hour:4?r=76byLTy8eLwNnT413RLsdZmfY9RfvBgE
The Mill ASMR relaxing music
We just finished reading selections from EDA literature on FREEDOM. Now we are writing (the prompts are pasted in below) - then there will be more time for sharing. v One of EDA’s founders wrote this: “I live in freedom, not fear.” Write about that …
v This is one of the 9th step promises: “We are going to know a NEW freedom, and a NEW happiness.” What does this mean to you?
v This idea: “…freedom from fear-based decisions” is a BIG idea -- How does it strike you?
v “Making the decision to love and care for myself — no matter what I did with food — gave me true freedom of choice..” Write about that.
My thoughts on this subject aren’t directed at my past behaviors around food although there are connections if one looks deeply enough. These days I say I am in recovery from disordered thinking, which addresses the root of all my harmful behaviors, past and present.
I do think that in reining in the loose ends of my pathological behavior around food, a pocket of rot was revealed beneath the surface. I was brought up with the idea that weight gain reflected a “lack of control” around food. Someone who gained weight was simply eating “too much” of the “wrong food.” If they exhibited self-control, which can be translated to “no enjoyment may be had from eating ever,” their body would revert to the “right size,” AKA a size deemed acceptable by society.
Jennette McCurdy discussed her disordered behaviors around food in her memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died. She said that being too thin is viewed as unacceptable and being too large is definitely viewed as unacceptable. There is only a very narrow size range deemed acceptable.
That was what I struggled with during my nearly forty years of having an active eating disorder. Although I discovered the concepts of Health at Every Size and Size Acceptance when I was 45 years old, I would still struggle with the diet culture beliefs and patterns that had been deeply ingrained in my psyche from childhood.
Prompt 1
In recovery, we take care of our basic needs, continue to build self-trust through small actions, celebrate progress, practice positive self-talk, and listen to our bodies. __From Family Trauma Booklet (EDA)
Practicing positive self-talk is something that’s really difficult for me to do. For a brief time, I was recording my daily wins. This included small things like doing the dishes. It didn’t have to be winning the Nobel Peace Prize or even the Noble Peas Prize. Just the everyday stuff counts. My reason for doing this was to try and show my harsh inner critic that I actually do accomplish things every day. It simply takes a long time for the small things to turn into a big, quantifiable WIN in all capital letters, splashed in glitter, and with all the fixins.
Sometimes a win is as simple as figuring out that Chrome was forcing autocorrect on me, which is why everything I wrote was being taken and turned into a nonsensical mish-mash. For instance, Chrome insisted that EDA should be corrected to WIN. No, you silly ass. If I wanted to say WIN, that’s what I would have said. These damn machines always think they know better than we do. Back the fuck off, Skynet!
Tech rant aside, rather than saying, “Oh, so that’s what was going on. Good on me for thinking of that,” I berated myself for taking so long to think of it.
“Why are you so stupid and slow?” the inner bully raved at me. “You’ve been freaking out about the words being changed in your document but you didn’t figure out till now that it was autocorrect? Ugh, you’re so dumb! And do you know why you’re so dumb? It’s because you’re FAT!”
Yeah...
Like that makes any kind of sense.
However, I’m nothing if not pragmatic, and listening to this inner asshole stops me from accomplishing things because then I dissolve into a self-loathing meltdown, and there is not a more useless state of existence. Therefore, the inner asshole’s days of making a hash of me are numbered. I told my therapist I need to get serious about working on my PTSD. I am not going to put up with this trash anymore.
Prompt 2
A daily gratitude practice has shifted my perspective. Focusing on what I’m doing right and what is going well helps me manage fear. I now understand that fear is a normal human instinct that points me toward constructive action.
From Reflections on Recovery by EDA Members p. 58
Sometimes when I read things like this I feel like I’m from a different planet than the people saying them. As I pointed out in the previous section, paying attention to the things I do right during the day trains me to see that I’m actually not a “complete failure.” This isn’t necessarily a “gratitude practice,” a concept that I resist because it’s one of those ideas that’s been shoved down my throat over the years. It’s the sort of thing that Little Miss Sweet Tea and Sunshine would espouse while droning on in her saccharine voice that she simply doesn’t underSTAND how anyone could be DEPRESSED when there is so much BEAUTY in the WORLD!
You may think I’m being hyperbolic. I actually encountered this person (virtually) during the early 2000s when I first started blogging and still believed that with eight billion people in the world, I would surely be able to find my community of weirdos. What I learned is that the blogging community is pretty much high school in cyberspace and it’s full of people like Little Miss Sweet Tea and Sunshine spouting happy crappy platitudes while driving people who are struggling back into the shadows.
Anyway, therein lies my knee-jerk reaction to the idea of a gratitude practice. That shit needs to be reframed or it’s going to stick in my craw rather than sitting comfortably in my contrary psyche.
I do like to see what I’m doing right. This may not be the right way of thinking, but in some ways, it’s the best revenge against the inner asshole.
Ornery Owl Has Spoken
Try to knock me off my fence. I dare you!
I will receive a small commission from purchases made through the following links.
Body Positivity deck
Dead Inside Deck
The Fuck It Diet
Health at Every Size
I’m Glad My Mom Died
Intuitive Eating book
Making Peace with Food deck
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.